How to dual-boot Vista with Linux (Vista installed first) -- the step-by-step guide with screenshots

Rydekull:

Having vista installed already, then adding either xp or linux.

lelegg:

I have same question here. If Vista already installed (and has not partitioned the disk as way as you mentioned), how can I install Linux without reinstalling Vista? I tried partitionmagic, but it cannot run on Vista at all.

someone:

Vista has its own native partition tool. Go to search, type 'computer management', and on the left hand panel, click on disk management.

kcajblue:

since my laptop has two hdd's, can i just install linux on the other hdd

christopher:

i have looked and cannot find the answer to this question either. did you find out how to manage it?

SunWoof:

I want to install Linux onto a new separate drive; Vista is already Installed on the first drive. How do I do that?

Ubuntuer:

Yeah, you can just select the second hardrive to install Ubuntu to. This is what I do and my dual boot got setup by itself.

Rohith (New user):

Hi,
I am trying to install ubuntu on windows vista which has 3 partitions out which the first partition has windows vista and it occupies abt 55 gb of harddrive and second has 6 gb and the third has 17gb. I need to install ubuntu on 17 gb partition. So when I put the cd in my laptop and tried to install it. when the ubuntu partitioner starts loading. It only shows me two options one is guided use entire disk and the other is manual. It doesnt show me guided use the largest continuous free space. So I tried to select manual but when I clcicked on the partition of 17gb and hit forward it says an error message stating to use root file please help me out to solve this problem

TivoGuy (New user):

You need to have true empty space. a 17GB partition, even if there are no files, or if it's not even formatted with a file system is still not considered empty space. Boot into windows and actually DELETE that 17GB partition. Then you should be able to chose the Guided install option.

amarlis:

try to select which drive should boot, at Bios . Then you can decide to install Linux or whatever you like in your other drive .
Be succeed .

sunny:

you just simmply need to change the partition format
to be either ex3 or reiser. as long as ur using internal
hard disk. i mean it is not connected by either USB
or firewire connection. becuase if ur trying to boot
from external device then it might need to load the drivers
first which might not be possible if ur computer has
not booted up.

So in conclusion

1. Make sure ur hard disk is inside ur computer i.e
not connected with USB or firewire connection.

2. Make correct linux partition.

3. Choose drive which is setup for linux format to
install linux.

Enjoy.. try ubuntu, its very easy and friendly and
have GUI for most of the installation process.

dishbreak:

yes, it's really easy. use partiton editor to make an ext3 partiton and a swap partition.

follow install instructions closely

as always, remember to BACKUP!

steve 518 894 0445:

On a DELL contraption, the disk management operation is locked to 'Help' only.

After some searching the Microsoft library DOES tell you how to repartition a disk among other goodies, but as luck,er, i mean Bill Gates would have it The Command box does not recognise the Command: at any price and the 2003 6.0 and 6.22 versions are ignored by Vista Piece Of YAHOO ! Ooops, I meant Premium Puppy Chow....

There Is a work around, Though I have no idea what the hell that is..

Steve
518 894 0445. Call me.
mo27aug07 1127

neuser:

You say:
Choose "Manual - use the largest continuous free space". Well, I don't see that option.
Also when the partitioner loads, it doesn't seem to 'see' the partition created by Vista. This step seems to be crucial...

wwilliam.klein (User):

I used this guide to add SUSE 10.1 to my system yesterday, then completed the steps to make my system "Tri-Boot" in effect; the SUSE bootloader comes up first, and then I can pick SUSE or the Vista bootloader, website hosting which has both Vista installs and my XP. Very neat; a must have for anyone that either "must" have linux or just wants to "mess around" in linux.

Sean Gilmore:

Two things that happened for me that you have to do, one is defragment and the other is clear the page file, vista doesnt let you partition if there is a page file or something (you can see that in a little note when using the included partitioner, its even in the picture in the instructions actually)

another_pp:

Gnu/Linux has its own GUI based partitioning tool named Gparted - it is on the Ubuntu live CD. Although I have not used "shrink", from looking at the tutorial pics I would say Gparted is a much better app - much the same as Partition Magic if not better :) Just boot using the live CD and then use Gparted to create the required free space, and then partition your drive. Just remember as with all procedures involving messing around with your partition table make sure you create a backup of all your important data first

ryuzaky (New user):

you can just download Wubi which is the best way to instal Ubuntu from Windows Vista or Xp without having a pre-partitioned disk, this is a free Linux software which asks you how big you want the partition to be and what version of Linux you want, you don't even have to have the installation disk or anything at all but Wubi, it will do everything for you.
You can download Wubi from here: http://wubi-installer.org/

sreeharshajois (New user):

partition magic don work with vista....to create partitions go to control panel in tat go to system(device) management r somethin lik tat...in tat u ll b provided with an option by name storage management where u ll b provied with options to create partitions(both primary n logical).

Woods (New user):

In 2001, Microsoft released Windows XP, the first version that encompassed the features of both its business and home product lines. Before XP was released, Microsoft had to maintain both the NT and the 9x codebase. XP introduced a new graphical user interface, the first such change since Windows 95.In late 2001, with the release of the Xbox, Microsoft entered the multi-billion-dollar game console market dominated by Sony and Nintendo.Microsoft encountered turmoil in March 2004 when antitrust legal action was brought against it by the European Union for abusing its current dominance with the Windows operating system (see European Union Microsoft antitrust case), eventually resulting in a judgment to produce new versions of its Windows XP platform—called Windows XP Home Edition N and Windows XP Professional N—that did not include its Windows Media Player, as well as a fine of €497 million ($613 million).

Woods (New user):

In 2001, Microsoft released Windows XP, the first version that encompassed the features of both its business and home product lines. Before XP was released, Microsoft had to maintain both the NT and the 9x codebase. XP introduced a new graphical user interface, the first such change since Windows 95.In late 2001, with the release of the Xbox, Microsoft entered the multi-billion-dollar game console market dominated by Sony and Nintendo.Microsoft encountered turmoil in March 2004 when antitrust legal action was brought against it by the European Union for abusing its current dominance with the Windows operating system (see European Union Microsoft antitrust case), eventually resulting in a judgment to produce new versions of its Windows XP platform—called Windows XP Home Edition N and Windows XP Professional N—that did not include its Windows Media Player, as well as a fine of €497 million ($613 million).

Snapafun:

Use gparted-3x and do your installation one step at a time:
1.Partiton with gparted
2.Boot Vista and allow for chk-ing to run
3.Install Linux ( I prefer PCLinuxOS )
4.Boot into linux
5.Manually configure linux bootloader if required
6.Boot back into Vista

Anonymous_TN:

Yea...exactly...I used gparted & it was much easier. I'm now dual-booting Ubuntu 7.10 & Vista and the whole process w/ both installs only took about an hour.

Andlynx:

This tutorial is great, thanks! Just one question: would it work with Windows 2000 too?

I suspect it does but I fear to mess up my hard disk :S

Greetings from Chile!

Ubuntuer:

Yeah, its even easier with w2000. Defrag your disk to free up a good portion of space. Boot the live cd, and just use the built in partition editor under System > Administration > Gnome Partition Editior to create a 5-10 GB ext3 partition and a 256MB - 1GB linux-swap partition (basically an extension of ram, yes you need this). Select the ext3 during install. And your good to go!

Steven Farthing:

I installed Suse Linux and stayed with it.
It is not fun hitting start to browse your system like the internet.

Sorry Vista modista...

Benedict Wyss:

Hi there,

I re-installed the vista boot loader and then wanted to return to the GRUB loader. I clicked the uninstall option and then the write button in EasyBCD and it removed the NTLDR, as noticed after reboot.

I cannot get to the recovery partition to restore Vista (but I did make the revovery DVDs ;-))

Currently tracking how to replace the NTLDR with XP recovery console using fixbbr, fixboot etc.

Any one had this issue?

Cheers

Xavier:

Hello,

I had search somewhere I could learn how to dual-boot Vista and Ubuntu, now I know how to manage it but I have tried previously and I have a problem.

Ubuntu works but not Vista, and I can't re-install Vista, because it stops with a black screen.

Following your instructions when I try to boot with Vista I can boot Dell-Checks if I start with root (hd0,0) or it tries to start Windows in safe mode if I try root (hd0,1), but I can't follow the installation.

When I check the partitions I have:

Partition1 /dev/sda1 vfat /media/sda1 78.41MB
Partition2 /dev/sda2 NFTS /media/sda2 33.58GB
Partition3 /dev/sda3 extended3 / 29.30GB
4 /dev/sda5 swap 1.95GB
Partition6 /dev/sda6 FREE BUT CAN'T READ

Can somebody help me?
Thanks in advance
Xavier

nurb:

according to that link:
http://www.pro-networks.org/forum/about78184.html#dualboot

since you have sda disks, you should try with (sd0,1)

good luck...

avec un peu d'espoir tu m'as preparé le terrain...

merci..
bruno

Marcellus Barrus:

I have repaired the Vista Boot by booting to the Vista OS DVD and selecting repair.

Boot from the Vista DVD and on the screen where you’re prompted to “Install now”, select “Repair your computer”.

The next screen searches for local Vista installations – there should only be one, so click Next.

Choose Vista

This loads the System Recovery Options screen. Select the first option – Startup Repair. This looks for problems which would prevent Vista from loading (like a missing bootloader) and automatically fixes them.

This information from taken from the follwoing page: http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp#restoring

chichilos:

I got Vista and Ubuntu to dual boot. J'ai dû merdouiller un peu but thanks tou your tutorial I got my way around.

Sabbour:

If you are having problems after installing Ubuntu booting into Vista (if you get the Vista progress bar and then a black screen)..

this is because Ubuntu messed up the NTFS tables. This is easy to fix!

Check this out
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=398122

I did it and I booted into Vista again..whoo hoo!

I didn't even loose any data

Earl:

I can't believe what is happening ! Everything went fine until the first restart. Before I updated a few programs in linux (firefox etc.) and downloaded a few (some kind of pdf reader)
I downloaded also an ati driver package or what and switched to default radeon because I thoght that that would be ok. I haven't noticed anything after the switch. So I tried to boot into vista.
Everything vent fine. So I wanted to go/boot back to linux, BUT (!) it's only booting until the "kernel is ok" tipe message. I only get a black screen and no activity. I can't even switch to console mode by pressing ctrl+alt+F2 F3. The only thing that works is the crtl alt del combination sad.gif So I thought that vista overwrited the boot so I tried to boot in linux recovery mode. It boots without problem. So I thought that I've made wrong by the graphical things, so I reconfigured the xserver-xorg. After booting nothing new, just the inactive black screen. So I managed with help of a friend to download the ati driver for the hd 2000 series somevere and run the install. It said that it installed succesfuly but after restart no changes just the black screen. So I put the live cd back and boot from it. It runs ok, it sees even a few files from the installed linux f.e. the desktop files of my account in the installed linux and stuff like that. So my question is what is the problem? Why doesn't it want to work? I don't even know if I made a mistake, or something else happened... is by linux something like a reinstall? I don't even know what problem causes this error. Or where should i search for some kind of a log file. Please help. Is there something like a repair option?

Sucksatlinux:

I have a problem with this tutorial. I have completed it in accurate fashion but once I go to the GRUB to select Vista, it gives me the list but nothing happens when I select vista. What gives?

Stephen:

Just to let people know that with the new version of Ununtu(7.04 Feisty Fawn)GRUB picks up Vista with no user input. Just partition the drive(Vista has it's own partitioner if you didn't do it on install) boot with the disc and install, it works perfect with no problems.

Stephen T.:

What about the case where Vista was already installed on the new PC which I bought and the whole partition is an NTFS partititon does it mean I have to reinstall all over again?

Ubuntuer:

No, if you follow the first few steps, it shows you how to shrink the Vista partition to free up some space.

Stephen T.:

What about the case where Vista was already installed on the new PC which I bought and the whole partition is an NTFS partititon does it mean I have to reinstall all over again?

biggenz:

No need to reinstall. Vista allows you to shrink or expand your logical drives without the use of third-party utilities (e.g. Partition Magic). Go to "Managed Computers" and then Disk Management. You can then right-click on your drive and select "Shrink Volume".

Ubuntu will recognize the unallocated space during setup.

ralphw:

I want to add Ubuntu (6.06LTS or 7.04) to the an Acer 5100 with Vista. I understand there is a 'hidden' partition and a 'special' MBR that Acer uses to enable their e-Recovery system (which allows you to reinstall Vista from the "Acer e-Recovery" disks I created.

I can always use a Flash Drive or memory card to boot the machine and get Linux going, but don't want to do this long term.

Eventually, I may want to blow Vista away and install my copy of Windows 2000 or XP Pro,

paulg:

I just dual-booted Ubuntu 7.04 with Vista on my Acer 5610.. My HD was partitioned into 2 sections- one for the OS and the other for the backup stuff (plus the hidden one).

So I shrunk the backup and installed Ubuntu in the free space.. GRUB identified Vista and will boot into it no prob. So it shouldn't be any problem.

Carlos Ocon:

I am about to do the same, but I just want to be sure if you can boot to Vista, Ubuntu and to the recovery partition without any trouble, also, is vista capable of restoring from hibernation when using grub?

Thank you in advance!

Martin:

You are right. If GRUB is installed into the MBR of the System disk it will overwrite the laptop manufactures own bootmanager which catches pressed F-Keys to start system recovery and other special boot configurations.
I have been able to configure GRUB to boot from the recovery partition on a Sony Vaio VGN-N38L/W but functions of other F-Key appear to be lost. Some IBM Thinkpads have a special tool installed which can restore the original MBR/bootmanager. I am still looking for an equivalent from Sony

Russler:

I want to set up my hard disk as follows
1. Vista System
2.Second Partition for my documents and other files
3./ for Kubuntu
4. Swap
and
5. /Home

According to my research a harddisk can have only four primary partitions so which ones do I make primary, extended or logical and how do I go about the whole thing

Haakondahl:

I would say (six months later...) that the /home and /docs should go into ext parts of the same primary part. I'm assuming, out of prudent ignorance, that the OS partitions as well as swap would do better on primaries. WARNING: This is based on not even a small amount of research. It's just my -pfffft- opinion.
So who knows better?

max:

Hey,
i am completely bugged here
i hav a terrible situation , deatils r too much , just tht i need to get linux asap.
now, i installed everthing as you mentioned, and did everything as u said, i even get a vista option on my grub screen. but on clicking vista , NOTHING HAPPENS !!!
I have been searching ways to fix this problem, found nothing....no fruits yet...
plzzzz help me.....m desperate
for your info, everything is as shown on your site, vista business edition, ubunut with kernel 2.6.xx
installed vista first , then ubuntu. clean install, fisrt partition vista, second ubuntu,
and also am not able to access vista drive from ubunut's file browser, although it says it should be happening.
HELP !!!!

max:

i just fogot to mention its ubuntu 6.6
not 7....so i dnt see a way out////
i hav been doing this thing for whole week.

smtimes vista, sumtimes xp, sumtimes ubuntu, maybe i shud just get back to vista...it worked fine...if only i didnt hav this big issue to access unix and make my project on it/////aaarrgghhhhh

Tony:

it works, you save me alot of time, thanks alot for your work,
cheers

Sergio:

I have a vista preinstalled, I downloaded the 7.04 of ubuntu it starts the os but i got stock at the loading message in the welcome screen >?
Any ideas?

James Bannan:

Hi Sergio - I've found that depending on your graphics card, Ubuntu doesn't load normally when it's loading the Live CD. I have a RADEON X800 in my test system, and Ubuntu doesn't seem to like it at all. 

When the Live CD boot menu comes up, choose the Safe Graphics option - that should get you through. 

)a((o:

Hi James, Sergio,

i have the exact same problem as Sergio described. But the alternative "safe graphics mode" doesn't get me any further. Can you think of anything else? (I have a dual-core Delll XPS M1710 with an 256 mb NVIDea card, i'm not sure if that's useful info, but i've only just begun to work to be a geek :-)).

I also have this live cd of Fedora Core 6 as a possible alternative, do you think the procedure you described for dual booting would work for Fedora as well?

Thanks in advance...
)a((o

donbrew:

I did the dual boot vista/Ubuntu successfully. for reasons of my own I now want to undo the ubuntu installation. Any thoughts on how to remove linux from the machine?

MClark92:

One way to delete the Ubuntu installation is to startup in the Vista installation CD or DVD and delete the Ubuntu partition. That works for me when I need to delete a partition and/or OS.

izu:

after installing linux mandriva2006 on a new HP laptop that already had vista running on it, everything went well for afew days and now its telling me "missing operating system". what does this mean and what can i do to remedy this?

JeremyD:

I'm at Disk Management, but when I open up the Shrink window, I cant enter an ammount to shrink by, but I can't actually shrink... 

Here's a screenshot of what it looks like.

Hans:

me too. the shrink option gray out just like Jeremy. I tried diskpart and it doesnt wotk too, i couldnt shrink with this error : The specified shrink size is too large. Looks like it all taken by Vista. I m using HP Pavilion dv2213 ntebook

Jay Lacher:

I have to say thank you for this page. I also have to add a couple of notes.

First I need to outline my drive setup. I have two physical hard drives. One is a 80gig SATA drive that holds Vista and another partition for software installs. The other is a 160gig IDE drive that holds my system image backups and data.

Strictly following the instructions set forth by this page I had total failures. It just did not work. Through half a dozen attempts of doing a Ubuntu install I finally found the fix. The instructions on this page are correct but in some cases needs to be modified.

My actual problem was probably a BIOS setting dealing with the drive priority for hard drive boot. I have Vista installed on the SATA drive (now also Ubunty 7.04)

Here is how I fixed, or got it working. I opened my case and physically unplugged the IDE drive and then followed the instructions posted here to a tee. It totally worked. I then reconnected the IDE drive and it still worked. All is now cool and I am running a fully sucessfull dual with Vista and Ubuntu 7.04, Fiesty Fawn.

Here is what I think happened. The unplugging of the IDE drive during the install was the key. My BIOS allows the selection of priorities for boot for same type drives. Even though Vista was installed on the SATA drive the BIOS priority was for the IDE drive. Unplugging the IDE drive resolved this issue and made the SATA drive primary. Everything went fine. When I re-connected the IDE drive the BIOS maintained the SATA drive as the primary boot hard drive. Problem solved. This could probably be solved without removeing the IDE drive and just going to the BIOS and selecting the SATA drive as the primary boot drive.

Hope this helps someone some where...

Jay Lacher
MS MVP Shell/User

bobby:

there a just too many issues with dual booting and one can not say that they exist a standard guideline that apply to all systems..so how do u know which guideline ur system falls into..why i would really love to try out Ubuntu..vista is working like a charm on my notebook ,and i don't want to disturb it by daubing into the murky water of dual booting...where anything can go wrong..when i have enough money i would definitely get a notebook dedicated to Linux..for now i guess i just have to stick with vista

Shudogg:

Because you are a noob and scared of change. You will be stuck on Windows thinking it is the only choice like 90% of the computers users out there. FORCE yourself to use linux for a few weeks, you wont leave linux. It is a real OS unlike Winjunk.

JeremyD:

Just becuase YOU don't like windows doesnt mean its crap. I've been using Windows since Windows 95, and I've been using Ubuntu for about a year now. And I've yet to discover the desire to switch over to JUST Linux. Linux isnt better than windows. windows isnt better than linux. its a matter of preference. And the sooner idiots like you realize that, the better off we'll all be.

Retlaw:

Although I feel you pain I hate to see someone make a blanket statement that is so ridiculous that most knowledgeable persons will realize you are joking. You are joking right? No one is that misinformed are they? If that is your stance than its a waste of time change your mind. Bottom line is that Windows as its place just like Linux. If you are more comfortable with Windows then by all means use it. But you would be hard pressed to backup such a blanket statement. Sorry to see that you are giving up on Linux but keep reading and there will eventually be an easier way for you to try Linux again.

SImonff:

Thank you all - Windows vs Linux discussions are so inspiring. It solved my dual boot-issue in a schnip :)

Andy:

Hi I bumped into a weired issue with dual booting Vista and Suse Linux. I have Vista installed on RAID configuration and I have 3 other hard drives in the system available for Linux. can you pint point me how to do dual boot with Vista pre-installed on RAID and I'd like to install Linux Novel Suse Enterprise 10 on another hard drive, please thank you

Jon Manness:

Has anyone attempted to dual-boot Vista and a Ubuntu 7.04 alternate such as Ubuntustudio with Vista installed first? Since Ubuntustudio doesn't have a Live CD, I'm not sure how well the text-based installation works with Vista.

Josh:

Everything was working fine up until I get to the screen where I'm supposed to click "Guided- use the largest continuous free space". There's no option for this on that screen. It just says Guided- the whole shehbang and Manual. I partitioned my hd just the way it says to, and it seemed to work. I have 95 gb just waiting for ubuntu. Was I not supposed to make it an f:/... was I supposed to keep it C:/... ahh, so confused.

Gav:

I'm dual booting XP and Ubuntu, and installed my system a little differently.

But, the idea of shrinking the partition in Vista was to create UNALLOCATED space for Ubuntu. ie. unused or blank space. If you made this space an f:/ drive, then its no longer blank or unallocated - its a windows ntfs partition called f: (and Ubuntu will be unsure of where to install itself, hence choice of only manual or 'whole shebang').

Perhaps go back and get it back to unallocated space again (resize or delete f: ), and the Ubuntu install should be more like the example. There will be unallocated space available, Ubuntu should detect it, and should offer the option of installing to it.

Good luck
(It took a while, but I eventually learned my way around Linux and now use it instead of XP - a bit of learning, a bit of occassional frustration, but very rewarding)

staf:

Hi Gav,

I have created this partition under Vista and when I want to install Ubuntu on this unallocated partition Ubuntu says this partition is "unusable". I've tried to format it with GParted as .ext3 but since it is "unusable" I can not do so.
Any idea what this can be? In Vista it is not possible either to format this partition as fat32 or even NTFS.
regards,
Staf

staf:

Hi Gav,
I wonder if you could help me. you wrote "...There will be unallocated space available, Ubuntu should detect it, and should offer the option of installing to it." That is the problem, Ubuntu does not detect the unallocated space. It marks this partition as "unusable". It is also not possible to format this as ext3 with GParted. Even in Vista you can not format this partition as fat32.
Do you know what to do?
thanks,
Staf

Mike G:

On my Compaq 6820s, which runs Vista Business, I am seemingly getting some frequently seen problem. There is a large C partition, which I have duly shrunk, plus some other smallish partitions (including an HP recovery one). Like others, when I get to the partitioning I see no option for "Guided -use the largest continuous free space". I have "Guided -use entire disk", which is a NO-NO, or Manua, which sees a large chunk of unusable space after the C disk (i.e. the result of the shrink).
This is trying to install the latest Ubuntu (7.10).
I believe that I have seen a request for how to deal with the manual option, but have not seen any obvious reply.

tim:

I'm scratching my head here. I've followed the directions on this site and others. I have Vista and XP. I shrank my Vista volume as directed, but when I reboot after the Ubuntu install I do not get a grub screen. Just the usual screen that lets me choose Vista or "Older version of Windows"(XP). Everyone says it should "just work" which is why I'm confounded.

holto:

tim do you care to give me a few details about your setup?

is it a laptop and does it have a service partition?

does it have a combination of sata and pata drives ?

when you boot with the live disc what are the partition values (ie hdb4, sda2 ect ect...)

also if you can boot into a linux live session,

then run, "sudo grub"

the prompt should change and then type "find /boot/grub/stage1"

post the results here.

Irshi:

hello guys...im a newbie to this linux environment...im on the process of downloading linux suse 10.2 ...can u people tell me is there any problem installing suse linux in one of my fresh hard drive which has a space around 29GB...i have 4 drives and the c: drive is having vista ultimate loaded into it and i want to install suse 10.2 in one of my free drive...since im a noob plz tell the correct procedures for doing it...also i want the clear instructions for dual boot guys...any help will be appreciated pals...

Shang:

If you are new for Linux, don't try to install in the PC, instead try VM or live CD first.

andrei:

Hi! sorry to drop in, but I had the same problem as tim on my laptop (already having Vista :( installed), while trying to install ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon from the live CD...
Actually, the GRUB was not properly installed (fatal error...) and even after downloading & installing the packages, the find boot/grub/stage1 command returned a "no such file" error.
Must I use another ubuntu distro (7.04 FF seems not to be supported any more)?

Thx in advance

Aluizio:

Hi,

I've been working for 2 years with windows XP and linux ubuntu in my laptop.

Now, I got a new laptop (HP dv6335, intel GMD950)with vista. I am following your steps:
1) Partition - OK
2) Downloaded ubuntu 7.04 and burned CD - OK
3) Boot with cd ??? Here is my question. Could you explain this step in more details?

Thanks, Aluizio.

Aluizio:

Hi,
Please, could anyone help me?

How can I Boot the Vista machine from the Live CD? The computer automatically runs to windows. When I try ESC or F1 to break it, I got many choices and I am not sure how to point to the CD drive for booting...

Cheers, Aluizio.

kenfo:

during boot (before any vista screen) you will see text to the pt of "press x to enter setup". you need to press that button at that time, then go into the bios and change the boot order of the drives so that the CDROM (or DVD) is listed before the hard drive. You can change it back later if you wish...when you reboot the pc, you may see a msg like "press any key to boot to cd"...do that to boot to cd...that's it! if there is no cd in the drive, pc boots normally.

bianconero:

hi everyone, i have already installed Vista first on my new Dell Dimension E520 computer, so now i want to install OpenSuse 10.2, i boot my machine (and i´m sured that CD/DVD ROM is first in order than HDD in the booting setup), but when the DVD of Suse boots and shows the menu, says something like "HDD booting..." and automatically boot Vista again, i can´t press any key, not even F1 for help or F2 for lenguage, nothing...

someone please help me?

PD: i´m from Venezuela, sorry for my vague english

Gokool:

Means, Put your .iso CD (image)of Linux into your CD/DVD Rom drive and restart the computer. That is boot from CD. :-) This will load the CD that you have put in the drive as supposed to Windows vista. You'll be on live CD mode until you go through the "Install" process by click on the "Install" icon on your desktop. This icon goes away once install it into your computer. Good luck.

lastrider:

Hi,

I was hoping you could advise me with your expertise. I already have 2 partitions for my 1 physical HDD and I wanted to be sure before I jumped into an installation.

I wish to keep these 2 partitions, without adding another, C: where Vista is already installed and D: which has a few programs installed under Vista and other general documents.

So I wanted to know when at the Prepare Disk Space section of the install, what would I have to do? As I mentioned I would like to keep it at 2 partitions, obviously installing Ubuntu onto D: but I wish to keep the files there as it contains some programs installed under Vista. Would these files be wiped? I could easily do I backup of the other files and move them over to the C: partition, but I don't wish to uninstall and install the programs in partition D:

Is this possible? or should I take the easy route and shrink D: and install Ubuntu onto the unallocated space?

akrthik:

Hello all,

I am a newbie and I tried the above mentioned steps for installing
ubuntu 6.06, but after installing I'm not able to see vista on
the grub. I'm sure i did not miss any of the steps. i fear I wiped off
vista, is there any way I can recover it?

Thanks

Alejadro:

Thanks James, your guide save my life because I didnt want to broke the brand new "vista" PC of my girlfriend.

Hint: before start installing ubuntu, make shure the ubuntu-live can recognize and 'see' the vista partitions (mount -a).

Nik:

I am trying to install ubuntu 7.04 on my thinkpad Z61t that cam pre-installed with Vista Business. I've followed all the steps given above (shrink the volume in windows and use the largest contiguous free space for installing ubuntu)
At the last stage of the installation process, the migration assistant does not show Vista/Longhorn. Does this mean Ubuntu does not see Vista installed in a different partition? If I continue to install will I be able to boot back into Vista? Anyone else seen this problem?
Unfortunately Lenovo didn't provide me with a Vista installation disk. So I won't be able to simply reinstall vista if the ubuntu installation doesn't work.

B-Roy:

If you got one of those vista anytime upgrade dvd's, which come with most pc's, you can use that to install vista. Just found out a few days ago that it actually is bootable and has all the vista installations on it. Then you could just use the key from the sticker on the bottom of the laptop to install a legit copy of vista again!

qwerty:

This is wrt pt.55 on pt.54 - The problem is same for me. The migration assistant during Ubuntu7.04 installation does not recognize the Vista Loader. I am installing it on a vaio laptop with a service partition and a C drive. I made a partition from C and tried installing Ubuntu as directed but got stuck up in the final installtion screen. Experts - any workaround

creyes-au:

I have a Lenovo laptop too and the migration assistant did not show Vista/Longhorn however I continued with last step and when I booted a I still saw 2 Vista OS (My hidden SW drive) and the installation one and selecting the last one I could boot to Vista without problems. In this tutorial at the end teaches you how to make Vista the default.

sergioS:

I followed your tutorial to the letter but I didn't get what it promised. I have Vista Ultimate already installed on one hard drive. I proceeded as suggested in the tutorial to install via a CD live Ubuntu 7.04 on the space freed in a second drive by shrinking with Vista Disk Management the previous partition on that drive. What I got on rebooting was:
"GRUB loading stage 1.5
GRUB loading please wait ....
Error 22 "
and it stuck there.
(Very hard to restore previous situation and getting rid of GRUB. I made it thanks to an image of drive C: previously backed up).
Now, I really would like to try again installing UBUNTU (and enjoy all the beryl stuff I have seen) but how to get around that grub problem? Thanks for any suggestion.

Steel Frog:

To resolve error 22, remove any USB stick(s) and other removable media from the PC when booting up. :)

Amadomon:

Someone PLEASE help me-- I am not a noob, having configured several dual-boot machines in the past, though always with XP/Ubuntu. I understand that Vista handles the MBR differently, and have followed all instructions to successfully shrink the volume in Vista--it shows up as an unallocated volume. However, when I then attempt to boot from a Feisty Live CD, the kernel loads but the hangs up with this error message:

BusyBox v1.1.3 (Debian 1:1.1.3-3ubuntu3) built-in shell (ash)
/bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off
(initramfs)

What gives? I can't seem to install Ubuntu into my unallocated volume. Please help-- Vista is a vast improvement over XP, but I want Ubuntu back, especially with this new Core 2 Duo chip! Thanks in advance.

Tony:

I get exactly the same problem.
Has anyone overcome this please.
Dell Inspiron 1420 notebook being used.

Arun:

I got the same problem with Dell Latitude D830. Hunting for solution now...

jj:

help!

Qwert Man:

If i just completely remove the ubuntu partition after doing this, will I be able to boot into Vista safely, or will that mess up GRUB? Please reply to me by e-mail (max@qwertycake.com), I don't check here often (there should be a posts RSS).

gus:

hi,
can't get online through ubuntu after successful dual booting vista and ubuntu. i think i've enabled my wireless connection in ubuntu (harder than partitioning) and still no connection. in vista the connection is ok. and guess what? my isp does not offer support for linux users. microsoft rules? not if i can help it. any suggestions? i'm looking at linux on-line help but so far no good.
gus

Biren Shah:

I am having the exact same problem.. Any help will be useful

Lee Jackson:

New laptop, 30GB free (unpartitioned) space - I can get all the way through to the final step but the migration manager(?) sadly doesnt see the Vista partition. Im assuming this is due to the ASUS recovery partition.

Cant aford to be sans laptop so no Ubuntu goodness for me today.

Sandeep:

i have tried installing ubuntu on my Compaq Presario F500 with AMD sempron 1.8 Ghz , Nvidia graphics card, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB hard disk. After the intial installation screen, the screen turns blank and only option left is to re-boot.
Please help!!!

frank:

i just installed the linux ubuntu on my laptop, vista came pre installed, i follow all steps in here, the problems is that when im trying to get in vista my system shows the winvista logo loading and after restarts again the systems.

Who can i solve it ??

Nicola Giosmin:

Thank you guys for this clear guide. In about 30 minutes I completed Ubuntu installation and now I
have a perfect working dual boot system. :)

You're great.

nicgios

Joe:

Hi

I recently bought a new laptop (HP Pavilion dv6386sc) AMD Turion™ 64 X2 Mobile Technology, 2048 MB, 160 GB, 15,4" og 2 GB RAM, which has a pre-installed version of Windows Vista Premium. I downloaded the lastest version from Ubuntu and then proceded to install Ubuntu, after I have left 15 GB of un-allocated space as per your instructions.

The installation went fine, and I was within the uBuntu operating system. I then after a while shutdown the laptop and rebooted in order to get to the dual boot window and test it. It however started immediately with Windows Vista, not providing me with an option to select which operating system I want to use. I have re-installed Ubuntu again, but my problem is still un-resolved.

I am not able to boot to Ubuntu, since the dual boot is not working.

How do I fix this? I am new to Linux and would really like to use it.

Look forward to some asistence and possible a solution to fix this?

Joe

Mike:

Hey Joe, you could always boot off of the Live CD and access the GRUB file and see if you just have a weird 0 second time "delay" on the loader itself and Defaulting to Windows Vista, OR, I'm wondering if there's a BIOS option on your Laptop that protects the HDD from having it's MBR modified.

melocotone:

I have been struggling against Vista Business for the last 3 weeks since I bought the newest Sony Vaio TZ11MN laptop (1,19 Kg) which included the newest Microsoft flagship – Vista – pre-installed.

Sure, on the cosmetics side of things Vista is very nice and fancy, but who wants to have trouble with things that previously worked well under XP and are now broken under Vista ?

If we forget the super sluggishness of Vista running under 1GB of memory with boot times of up to 10 minutes loading lots of bloat, the biggest problem I was subjected to was accessing the Internet.

After having configured Vista to use my Linksys WRT54G wifi router under WPA-PSK, having supplied the correct pass phrase, and having indicated to Vista that this device belongs to a private (thus trustfully) network I would have the greatest trouble to reconnect again and again, to the point of despair... Every time, again and again, either returning from a hibernation, sleep or rebooting again, Vista would declare that the network was “undefined”, thus not trusted, and would block me from reaching the Internet (allowing only “local access”), even if it had previously connected successfully to the access point and the SSID was displayed correctly. No, I had to be protected from the dangers of Internet. This is the new heralded security policy....

After visiting lots of sites with other victims reporting the same troubles (some folks had even reinstalled Vista because of this...) and trying several things I discovered that the way to go was to click the red “X” barring the way from my acess point to the Internet, then click “repair” then after some “analysis time by the repair tool” choose “request new IP adress from the DHCP server” and voila: Then I would have the way free to the Internet. Thank you Microsoft for protecting me from the dangers of the Internet and forcing me to do all those things to reach the Internet. What a fantastic Vista experience ! Even coming back from a hibernation (or sleep) it would cost me (with these steps, and the waits between steps) around 4 to 5 minutes to reach the Internet.

I had assumed that this laptop being so new (it reached the market end June in Europe), Ubuntu would not support it. But, driven by despair, I had to try. Thus I reached for the Ubuntu 7.04 CD which I had burned some months ago and voila: Ubuntu detected the 1366 x768 screen resolution, I connected to the Linksys access point in no time and was Firefoxing after some seconds.

The next step was how to dual boot Vista with Ubuntu, and there your tutorial was decisive for success. But before that, I had to suffer more frustration with Vista.

In order to try to obtain a so large as possible free partition (in order to get room on the HD to install Ubuntu) from the Vista partition using the Vista Disk Management utility, I decided to defragment the drive before “shrinking”. To my frustration the Vista architects have decided to remove – for Vista - the user feed back functionality that was previously built into the Windows XP defragmenter. Now, with Vista, you can either schedule the defragmentation (not a option for me, I want immediate defragmentation) or then press a button “defragment now” and keep staring at a small icon twisting around. Information like previously available – how much % done, estimated time to completion, hard disk representation showing the fragmentation and the like - is completely gone ! If the Microsoft architect that invented this was in charge of managing train systems he/she would probably decide to blind all windows in trains to prevent the travelers (users) from getting distracted by looking outside through the train windows and have an idea of how long they still had to travel to destination. Besides continuing defragmentation to completion, Vista would - after some time - abort the defragmentation spontaneously, forcing me to press again the button to proceed. This is Vista deciding for me...

Now I have a working Ubuntu (with still some minor problems – screen brightness changes do not work, the built in SD reader does not work, but a USB SD reader works perfectly) but it is many times better than the frustration I was getting with Vista. And it is much quicker, because the 1GB memory offers plenty of juice – with lots to spare – while under Vista it was not enough, even after having removed memory bloaters like MS Office (3 month trial), Symantec anti-virus (it felt like a virus itself, warning me every minute to do “live update” not withstanding my repeated “cancel” pressing), Symantec Save and Restore (with outrageous licence conditions – like the right to remove other software from the computer....) etc.

Thanks a lot for the very clear and instructive tutorial which was instrumental in solving this frustrating Vista experience.

nick:

...I was aamused to read your experience of Vista -exactly what I am going through now!!!
I have just downloaded Ubuntu - done a 'test run' and my new 'Vista' cobbled laptop purrs like a cat - amazing - thanks to all the guys out there!!!
and tomorrow I should try a full install of Ubuntu.

all I can think is 'Vista' ...why??!!!!

newscience (New user):

the problems with vista can be easily solved with proper confuguration, your boot times are slow because the laptop you are using has insufficient power to run vista (so ubuntu is better for you, even runs well on pIII systems) and the disk defragmenter has changed because it is hardly neccessary anymore, system files and page file are defragged automatically by vista, and seek/read times have been greatly improved but i guess some poeple still like to defrag and ware out hard disks so they can feel like they are doing something techy, (DO NOT DEFRAG SSD's UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE) lastly, a little research can go a long way, and stop you whinging on some stupid blog, it's your fault tou bought a sony!

joey:

i have the cd with ubuntu 7.04 and burned it with roxio...and the pos will not boot. what am i doing wrong and what can i do to fix it? i have tried the boot order thing in setup at startup, and its like my comp doesnt recognize it... i have a sony vaio n320e btw...and i am getting very frustrated with this. can someone please help?

Hopethishelps:

Download the free program Infrarecorder. Once you install that open it up, and put your ubuntu.iso in what you want to burn. Lastly go to action menu and select Burn Image. Once that is done, reboot computer and should load up from your CD/DVD player. If not adjust in Bios for reboot order.

Gokool:

Sounds like your ISO image isn't burned properly. Get ImgBurn to burn your iso. I used other programs to burn .iso but only wasted my CDs. ImgBurn is a great image burner and it is free. Leave your iso CD in your cd drive and restart your computer in order to boot the CD.
http://www.imgburn.com
Good luck.

0per4t0r (New user):

You have to use a certain disk burner that can burn iso images to cd/dvds. Infra Recorder works fine, but Roxio probably doesn't.

Surinderjeet Singh:

I have an Inspiron E1505 notebook with ATI Radeon x1400 and it came with vista preinstalled.
I tried to install ubuntu as per your advice but after freeing the space for it and booting from the live dvd, i do not reach the demo screen.Instead i recieve an error message saying X server output not found(the display)and i am left to the command prompt of ubuntu.
Can somebody help?

linux user:

For me Ubuntu has always just worked, the thing is, you MUST install windows first give windows about 1/2 of your hard drive, finish the install, THEN boot up and install ubuntu, only issue is the built in cameraa in my sony vaio doesn't work but i am just lazy/don't care to go ask for help , there are much better sites than this for ubuntu help. google is your friend, type whatever promlem, system you have + ubuntu i have always been able to find the answers, if you install windowz after linux windows will wipe out the MBR leaving no GRUB/LILO you could boot from floppy/CD and fix this. google.com has the answers. if you live in Savannah GA and wan't linux installed info@forsythcomputers.com

medusa26:

Hi,
I upgraded my xp to vista a few days ago and just now finished installing sabayon 3.4a. Now the problemis,right after the installation was complete, it gave me the option to reboot which i did. After rebooting, instead of getting a boot screen or it booting into sabayon, it automatically booted into vista. The vista and linux are both installed on the same harddrive, so i have no way of loading the linux. I read somewhere that the program easybcd helps, but the only option it shows meis the vista and no sign of the linux. So i was wondering if the installation didnt get completed? Does anyone have any ideas on how to solve this problem or can tell me what i did wrong?
Thanks alot

Rick Berry:

If you are getting no choice for the Linux install in the bootloader or you don't get GRUB showing at all, it usually is because you didn't follow the directions above to edit GRUB before rebooting. Its a common mistake.

Aluizio Oliveira Jr:

Hi all,
I am following your Linux installation steps. But in the 7th step, I don't have the "window vista/longhorn (loader)" under migration assistant.

I am afraid to continue my installation and find further problems. Can anyone help me?

Cheers, Aluizio.

kurt:

when is grub installed, im new to this and i want to try linux so please help

Cieran:

I follow all the steps of this manual, but I don't get the "Windows vista/longhorn (loader)" under migration assistant.
Thoughts?

Lai En:

Don't continue unless you only want to end up with ubuntu on your computer. I went through with it before when it didnt recognize the loader and when it rebooted I only had ubuntu that loaded at startup. I dont know how to get it to recognize the loader though.

B_Dauterive:

I own a Compaq V6110us with Turion 64x2 and 100G HD. I have already installed Vista Business and have set up two empty 8G partitions to try different flavors of Linux.
Is there a way to direct Ubuntu and Xubuntu to install into these empty partitions?

peterH:

I am able to follow the instructions up to the Ready to Install page, here migration assistant does not show Windows Vista. Looking back I guess that Ubuntu is not picking up the free space (10GB) created earlier. I have tried to use the Manual option and redirect to this space however I get the error message about not being able to create a root menu.

My set up is,

Asus F3F laptop
1 HDD split in to
C(vista) 57.3GB
D(data) 39.8GB
and 10GB of free space.

Please could somebody suggest a method to overcome this problem.
Thanks in advance.

Lapland1:

After 23 years I decided to go back to school. I needed a new laptop (Acer Aspire 5610z). It had Vista installed so I dual booted with Ubuntu according to this article...worked like a charm. Problem is Vista doesn't want to connect with wireless at school properly and they only support XP officially. I don't know anything about Linux, which is why I installed it, and it doens't recognize the wireless at all. I want to install XP which I am familiar with and could probably get to work at school and then I can learn on the other two OS's. How do I tri-boot to XP, now that I have Vista and Linux.

SteveS:

Ran into problem - I just bought an HP Pavilion dv9000 with two Hdds. Wanted to put Linux on the second hdd while leaving Vista on the first. After I bought a live CD from Canonical, I put it in the drive hit F5 on bootup to give options and was able to get to the first screen with start or install ubunto. But when I try to install, I get the following error message:

BusyBox V1.13 (Debian 1:1.1.3-3ubuntu3) built in shell (ash)

Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

/bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off *(initramfs) help

So whatzat talking about? This isn't in the tutorial. Any help appreciated. - Steve

hoongG:

this happens on mostly new pcs and laptops. i had the same problem. once booted up, hit the f6 key. add the following line (generic.all_generic_ide=1) to the existing lines there. *remove the ()*. that should do the trick. you should also try install on safe graphics mode instead of the first choice if you get another error msg regarding graphics halfway thru the installation

newtolinux:

I appreciate folks taking the time to write these instructions but the partition section needs more detail. The graphic shows guided partition and the instructions say use manual. I tried manual and quickly ran into a roadblock. I started out allocating 2048MB to swap out of ~50GB freespace I created using vista. When I completed that, the remaining freespace was unavailable (not sure what the specific word was in the ubuntu partion tool). It was clear I did not have sufficently detailed instructions to use manual partitioning like suggested so I quit the install with no damage to my vista installation.

Has anbody seen detailed instructions for using the manual allocation?

thanks

Dell inspiron 530 VISTA
320 GB drive
2.13 GHZ dual core intel
NVIDIA 8300

hoongG:

it should be "guided".

shiv:

i am facing the same problem too.. did u manage to fix it ? or should i go for "manual parition" and prepare partiond on our own ? the problem is the steps followed durin "shrink" resulted in an unallocated memory space which apparently is not a root partition.. hence ubuntu is not able to recognise tht.. wht did u do ?

Kankuro:

First of all i must say thank you for writing this guide, it helped me a lot.

Before i finish the install 1 wondered if i will have some problems when i finish because the Migration Assistant doesn't show Vista. What will happen if i install Ubuntu without Windows Vista showing up there?

My other problems is that i don't get my screen solution. Hope this can be fixed afterwards.

Joseadorn:

I FOLLOWED THE INSTRUCTIONS for the dual boot and it runs great. But I have two problems: 1)When I use Vista and I'm shutting down, it stays shutting down!!! It never shuts down, I have to shut it down manually. I tried to check what is the problem but I have no idea. 2)The other problem is on Ubuntu. I installed Compiz fusion and if I open an application like a game something similar it will close without notice. I know my laptop can run compiz since I used it before and it runs smooth. Does anyone know what can be done to fix this? Thanks for the guide and thanks in advance for any information for the problems.

Kamzalian:

Bought a new HP desktop PC on the 4th August 2007 and found to be very heavy and slow. Opening a file or starting a program takes a long, really long time. Felt like kicking the PC!
Internet connection made on the 14 August 2007 and I update my Windows. To my surprises there are 40 updates to be made! Considering the time lag in the launching of Vista and my purchasing the same, these updates are not excusable! I really wonder what these Microsoft guys are doing with their software. Why are there so many security holes that need to be plugged in such a short span of time? God knows! I then, being an experimenter, tries the much talked about LINUX Operating System called UBUNTU which is, you know free to use or free to try. I loaded it as a dual boot options. It really feels great! The steps and guidance for dual booting is provided at Dual-booting guide: Linux, Vista and XP step-by-step.
Now this is the question that cross my mind: Why is the Vista, the not so good OS, so costly? I must express my appreciation to the free software developer in their humanitarian works! May their tribe increase.
A well wisher of the movement ‘technology for all’,
Kamzalian
http://www.thehistorysofar.blogspot.com/

Mahajan:

I did everything according to tutorial , but when i boot from the latest UBUNTU cd to install , it is showing error "MEMORY FAILED TO READ" and it will ask to enter a help command.Please clarify why i am getting this kind of error inspite creating 10 GB space for UBUNTU.I am using HP(dv61560TX) laptoP with 2 GB RAM and having T5520 INTEL PROCESSOR.

Brave1:

Am i missing something ?I have sent my brand new computer out to have dual boot installed. Comes back , I turn it on go to do updates and xp is gone -at least it won't boot.It is visibleon drive but no boot. Should I take it back or follow your lead.?

wizzer:

Thank you sooooo much!

The last time I tried this I hosed my system. Turns out I was just missing one little detail, I was letting ubuntu partition my already NTFS partitioned drive rather than working with a unpartitioned free space :-)

Vini:

I have 2 Hd's of which in the first I had installed Ubuntu whereas in the second I installed Vista. I tried to follow your guide but I have arrived at a situation where only with the help of the Vista CD I can reach the screen where I can choose which OS to use, and it's not done by Grub but through Vista's MBR. Particularly I am confused on which of the SATA drivers I have installed Grub, as I have attempted to install it on hd1,0 and I believe that I may have another Grub on hd0,0.

Is that possible. If I dont use the CD it Ubuntu starts immediately without giving the option to choose booting into Windows.

All your help is appreciated.

R3AP3R:

"Ubuntu will then load the disk partitioner to determine where it's going to be installed. Choose "Manual - use the largest continuous free space". This will automatically select the unpartitioned space we created earlier using the Shrink tool. Click Forward."

== All good, except you illustrated the "GUIDED - use the blah blah", and manual, like the name suggests, lets you pick the path.

olli:

does it matter if vista is 32bit and ubuntu 64bit?

olli:

ok. nobody responsed so i tried and it works.

i have acer aspire 9303WLMi with Windows Vista 32bit and Ubuntu 7.04 64bit dual boot.

in "ready to install"-screen, migration assistant didn't find vista, but when grub started it automatically regonised vista (Windows Vista/Longhorn (loader)). so everything works fine :D

thanks!

NoOne:

Just bought a laptop with Vista and tried to use Ubuntu 7.04 to boot with after wasting my time shrinking the drive. Although the system is looking at the CD ROM for boot, it ignores Ubuntu 7.04 completely and boots right into windows. I don't know which I hate worse, Vista or Ubuntu.

Urederra:

if you had read the guide, you would have noticed that you have to change the boot sequence of your computer to "boot from the CD/DVD first"

You don't know how to do it? Read the guide and comments again.

linopus:

Hi, you made a great manual. It worked for me from first shot. I bought a notebook Acer Aspire5633 with 2G RAM, intel 945 video chipset and preinstalled Vista Home. Despite MS lost the case on his monopoly on including OS mediaplayer there is still a long way to get rid off for all the rest. For example: No change to buy an acer laptop without MS Vista! This sucks and is really easy money for MS. Oblige all hardware notebook manufactures to put MS on it and you stay number one!
Thanks to your manual I tried -without fear- to resize my data partition, install ubuntu and grub on the MBR and now I show everyone the difference between free soft and owned by the people and MS_$$$ Vista Home. I have a LINUX WOW Feeling!!! gDesklets and 3D cube, transparent windows and other cools graphics toys in Beryl. If I want this all in Vista I have to upgrade!!!!
PS: I am not pro windows or Linux, I simply do not like the way Bill gates earns his easy money!!!!

Jerry:

I have had Ubuntu on this new Toshiba Vista computer and love it. However, no sound! when Ubuntu loads, no sound. When I look at a slide show, no sound. Never, any sound! What's up?

Lai En:

During the install Ubuntu did not recognize the vista loader, so I went ahead with the install anyways. The problem is now when the computer starts I have no options to choose from, it automatically boots into ubuntu not vista or nothing, I have installed my recovery image before I started so I am back on just vista but would like to get this working. Anyone know any solutions to this please respond if you do.

Devin:

This is a great tutorial. I just hope that this will be updated when Gutsy Gibbon (7.10) is released in a few days!

somebodystupid:

I didnt get something
okay,say you have MS Office 2007 on Vista.
when you do the partitioning thingie, can u create a shortcut from Ubuntu to Vista's Office? Or do you have to waste another gigabyte on getting office on Ubuntus portion of the hdd?

Kyle:

Ubuntu is not compatible with programs like Microsoft Office, unless you use the Wine Emulator - Ubuntu comes with its own Word/Powerpoint/Excel/Etc Called "OpenOffice", its even a little better then Office, consider using that when your in ubuntu and using office when your in windows.

(P.S) You will find OpenOffice in your apps menu.

Suchipo:

first of all, great job. my problem is that on installation after booting from live cd and sellecting install, everything seems to load ok, but i recieve the message : "monitor(s) found but no compatible config" , how can i fix this? i'm anxious for kick windows out of my Laptop, asus Laptop with vista loaded, intel dual core

Luke:

All weekend was right.

Very helpful.

Simple & Clear.

Is there a way to integrate the dual-boot into the System Bios?


"You probably ended up spending all weekend researching the intricacies of adjusting partition sizes, boot loaders, installing operating systems in the right order, and other fun topics."

Someone:

This doesn't cover time!

Linux which is "right" wants to store the time in GMT in your computer because it's easier for calculating time with daylight savings. (see article below for more reasons)

Windows Vista has a registry key HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation\RealTimeIsUniversal
but it isn't properly supported, and so shouldn't be used - http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/mswish/ut-rtc.html

Since the GUI's in the article in the timezone don't allow you to set GMT or not, there should probably be a reference to changing the setting
"UTC=no" in /etc/default/rcS
Which is the Linux workaround to Microsoft insisting time is stored locally.

JayMoon:

NOONE HAS ANSWERED THIS QUESTION YET, HOWEVER MANY PEOPLE HAVE ALREADY ASKED. On my Toshiba Satellite laptop, I tried to install Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon (7.10). However, it did not detect the Windows Vista loader for the migration assistant. PLEASE HELP ME! I have this shrinked space and I want to put ubuntu on it!

Kyle:

Happend to me too - It works, GRUB will still "see" vista.

dave:

i wonder if i can do this same procedures with other Linux dist. such as, Mandriva 2008 ONE..?

help me plz and thanks in advance.. :)

Steven:

In the last step, ready to install, it does not show Vista/Longhorn in the migration assistant. Now does this mean that it does not find vista and i will be unable to use it. Thank You

Anonymouss:

Hi,

I Have the same problem. I dont want to continue just incase I lose everything on Vista, but i need to use Ubuntu like yesterday for coursework!

PLEASE HELP!

lepesh kumar:

Hai

After dual booting vista with new version ubantu 7.04version.ubantu gets stucks and even it doesn't move.atonce can u help me

big-ben:

I have downloaded it from the Planet Mirror and coppied it to disc, but when i insert the disc into my computer it asks me to start but it says loading for about 4-5 seceonds and then that goes and nothing happens after that, just stays blank, Im running Windows Vista Home Premium, i dont know if thats the problem but if you know what i need to do then please do tell me

Erk51893:

I have a little problem. I went through all the steps and got all the way up to the final installation screen, and was about to install Ubuntu when I realized something was wrong. It did not say in the migration assistant box that Vista/Longhorn was there. I fear that if I continue the installation, I will have many of the problems mentioned above with vista no longer working or not being recognized and becoming unusable. Please help or give solutions to my problem plz.

George:

Can someone confirm if we install Ubuntu without the migration assistant mentioning Vista/Longhorn. I'm using Vista and trying to use Ubuntu 7.10

Martin MEST:

i took the risk , and the grub now shows me the option to boot vista eventough it didnt recognized any other operating systems during theinstalation process.

Sorry for my grammar =P

im from Argentina

Laura:

hello! i have my laptop disc partitioned in three: 1_the recovery disc; 2_windows vista; 3_linux (ubuntu).
i want to delete the linux partition and use the whole disc for vista. but vista doesn't recognize linux partition, i mean, "in computer managment", the only option available for linux partition is "delete volume" (shrink doesn't appear). my question is, if i delete the linux partition, and extend the vista partition volume, everything will work ok?
because when i turn on my computer, i have to press escape and then i have to choose my OS, if i don't do that, linux starts by default.
anyone help me, I'm ready to delete it all!

ProfessorY (New user):

As far as I know you have two options. The first is doing exactly as you suggest, use the Disk Management tool to remove the Linux formatted partition, and reformat the unallocated space as NTFS or FAT32 so it is recognized by Windows. You may need to format that partition, then remove the partition between your existing Vista filesystem and the newly formatted space.

The second option is to use your boot CD, (Vista OS disc) to reformat the unallocated space, and remove the partition between your existing installation and the newly formatted space. You can do this without installing Vista again, or running a repair installation.

Good Luck,

Y.

tytto:

hi guys,

i read this article and sounds good, it's clear and simple.
anyway my situation i s al little bit different:
my new laptop (Asus xl50rl)
has Vista preinstalled and I'd like to
make a dual boot with Ubuntu.
The problem is that Vista has 3 default partitions, the first
without name I think for then recovery, the second
C: for Vista OS and the third D:\ Data.

My great dilemma is what do I have to do, now?
can I shrink C: or D: partition and then install Ubuntu?
Anyone had this problem? what have you done?

i'll be very happy for any kind of suggestion..

by

tytto

Mike:

I haven't had this problem, but it seems that your worried about what the partition would do to your machine, well you can partition either one, it doesn't matter, all that matters is which one has more free space.
I would use the C: drive, because that's generally the OS, and so has more free space, just shrink with the shrink tool and away you go.
bye
Mike

Ganesha:

I have followed the instructions mentioned in the above discussions to install RHL. However, my HP LapTop does say that there are some drivers missing !!.
I am not sure on what drivers are required for the successful installation.
If someone is aware of a solution for this, please let me know.
Thanks
Ganesha

Samuel:

My main system partition won't shrink down enough to install Ubuntu. Can I shrink my secondary data drive, and use that instead?

Thanks in advance.

Samuel:

Sorry to comment again so soon, I've just run into another hitch.

I'm having the same, unanswered problem as a lot of people; I'm installing Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) but it's not recognizing Windows Vista in the migration assistant section in the last step of the installation. Could you please confirm that installing Ubuntu with this piece of Information missing will not do any harm to the Vista partition. I have a family, and they'd be pissed.

Thanks in advance.

vistalinux01:

Boot Menu Problem
OK the problem is I originally had vista home installed on one HDD, then I installed vista ultimate on another HDD. I was running dual boot with basic and ultimate for a while but ended up removing ultimate (formatted the HDD). I decided to install ubuntu and everything seems fine until it gets to the boot options, it still comes up as Vista or Vista, ubuntu isn't on the list. How do I add it to the list because I know it has been installed.

Nanoxy (User):

I'm sorry I cannot answer because I have the same problem

Eidur:

Lots of people trying this on laptops (me included) share this very same issue: at last step migration manager doest not recogniza *any* vista/longhorn installation. So now everyone who cannot afford the time to lose all their data on Vista and then try to recover it is stuck there.
This post is great and very useful but... Will this common problem ever be discussed here?

New user 003:

Ubuntu did not see my Vista install either, and I continued anyway to see what would happen.

I've now got a brick that does nothing. :-)

Can still boot from the CD though, so will have to try figure out how to get it to recognize Vista exists via Ubuntu interface which I have never used before.

Or just reinstall Vista and throw Linux away.

adefrstyut:

i have a problem! when i reboot my computer it shows me that it has error on GRUB! how to fix this?

Grendel:

I just had that, if you run GNOME (the ubuntu partition program), then go down to the vista partition and set it to boot, then you get vista back at least, its in the manage flags section.

Josephr:

I am dual-booting vista and ubuntu and I think I set things up as described above. But I have an odd problem with grub.

After I shut down or hibernate Vista, when I turn on the machine the next time, it hangs at "Grub stage 1.5" and I have to turn the power off. After the restart, the machine then boots normally and I can choose to go either into linux or windows.

By contrast, shutting down linux and restarting causes no problem whatsoever.

So I am wondering where I might have gone wrong . I've looked around some in various forums but haven't seen this exact problem being discussed.

Frozen Corn:

How about with Kubuntu? Seems it won't recognize the gedit command line.

apisznasdin:

gedit is text editor for Gnome, try to replace gedit with kate

RobertC1985:

HELP!!!!!!! I messed up shrinking my volume! how can i fix this without having to redo windows?

shawn:

How to install vista + linux +XP in one hard drive? Any ideas?

Hans L.:

Hello,

for everyone having problems with the installer not finding or recognizing Vista, in comment 67 Alejadro gives the solution:
before start installing ubuntu, make sure that ubuntu-live can recognize and 'see' the vista partitions (mount -a).

Then it works perfect.

cl0ckwork:

hey im trying to install ubuntu gutsy (7.10) on my vista laptop. i can get through the install guide but once i am at the last screen (step 7 of 7) and under the migration assistant section, it does not tell me that i have a windows vista/longhorn loader, the area is just blank. does this mean that ubuntu is unaware of vista on my machine? how would i go about fixing this?

Grendel:

I too got this last night, and when I got to the finish and start up without the CD I had a big shock as my machine came up with cannot find operating system, I rebooted on the ubuntu disc and had a good look round, after about an hour of hunting I spotted the partition that contained ubuntu was flagged as boot (using GNOME), but obviously wasnt, so I set the vista partition to boot, and thank goodness the machine booted up into vista again (phew!!)
I too am not sure how to proceed from here, especially as ubuntu doesnt seem to see my wireless connection so I cant use it for the internet yet.This is my first foray into Linux, I have operated a couple of old Unix servers many moons ago, so have some idea, just not linux specific.

Libby:

That was very easy. Thank you!

BTW, you have a typo where it says, Choose "Manual - use the largest continuous free space". Manual should be Guided.

Sabrina:

this tutorial was really helpful!

I'd just like to say that I followed all the steps exactly how it was described here,
except that on the "Ready to Install" screen, there was nothing written under "Migrate Assistant", where it should say "Windows Vista/Longhorn (loader)".

I installed it anyway, and it worked perfectly! after reboot, grub should the windows vista option as described.

thanks!

ArtDeco:

This seems to have worked for me on a brand new dell 530 with Vista preinstalled. I had already partitioned the disk with gparted rather than shrinking Vista through windows, but it installed smoothly in the largest free space.
Keeping my fingers crossed. Thanks.

bigg d:

im useing vista and Migrate Assistant there is nothing showing up there and it says if u in stoll u lose all data

vishinator:

worked flawlessly with me. First on my blank unpartitioned HD i installed WinXPx64 wich comes with a recovery partition and then Vista ultimate x64 to dual boot. then i decided to try linux ubuntu 7.10 x64 for AMD and i booted off the Live-Cd and shrunk my main partitoin wiht xp pro x64 by 20gb and used the free space for linux. after i installes by grub bootloader shows..
1.Linux (generic)
2.Linux (recovery)
3.Memtest
Other OS's
4.Vista/longhorn (bootloader)
5.Winxp (but its actually recovery partition)
and i boot into Xp via vista bootloader

Anonymous-7473672:

I installed the newer version,
The Vista OS didn't show up in the installation but still worked like a charm!

Charles:

Hi. I am trying to dual boot linux on my Vista laptop. I downloaded 7.04, and put it on my laptop. It goes past the selection screen, then does the loading script, then there is a beep, and it goes blank like its going to load then everything stops and it just sits there. Am I doing anything wrong?

Dale:

I tried installing ubunto as instructed but it did not see my vista install.

Has anyone installed Vista 64 bit and then installed Fedora 8 and then manually configured grub to dual boot?

I can boot fc8 no problem. It is when I try to boot from windows that doesn't work.

I have looked and find a lot of links back to here but haven't found anyone who has done what I am asking about.

JLP:

Ok, my computer is really screwed (Kinda though, but still).I did everything as instructed here but my default OS(wich ''was'' vista)dosen't appear on the boot menu.Also, all of my files have been corrupted, even the ones that i actually download from firefox on ubuntu. I tried the recovery discs but nothing happens, even my backup discs aren't recognized. Wi-fi dosen't work, optical drive acts abnormally(opens and closes). This didn't happened when i installed ubuntu with this same disc on my other pc nor this happened on my friends computer with the same freakin cd.At first my computer was running fast, protected and virus-free but now it runs slow and acts abnormally.Not only that, my friends' computers have also been acting the same way as mine (i think their computers where also infected becasuse i was transfering data). Since this happened on my computer i've heard few people talking about this theme.
S.O.S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Travis:

I was wondering since i already have a second partition on my drive reserved for hp recovery and my main disk is 76% empty will it try to overwrite these instead of my empty 3rd partition

azbobs:

I have the same situation having HP laptop with a second partition on my drive reserved for hp recovery. I was wondering if you had any feedback and wondered from reading the other replys if it will rewrite to the MBR and lose the F1 recovery. Think I will read some more before trying this.

Cheers,
azbobs

Matt:

I followed these instructions and installed Ubuntu and vista on my laptop. About a month
after doing this the Ubuntu boot loader got deleted and Ubuntu's boot screen would freeze. Then a few day after that the same thing happened to the vista boot loader so neither OS would work i had to reinstall Vista on my laptop but i haven installed Ubuntu again. Any suggestions that could prevent the boot loaders from conflicting and deleting them selfs.

Nanoxy (User):

I like to say that I did install Ubuntu after Vista Home Premium and the installation went smoothly. It is as easy as installing an application, now because my harddrive has a recovery partition that came when I purchased my computer, its also showing the recovery partition wich is very handy in case I have any problem booting vista in the future, I now have the choice to restore vista as it were when I first bought it. Thank You!!!

Xerxes (New user):

okay, guys, i am in desperate need of some help:
when i select Vista from the GRUB menu, it brings me straight to the Vista recovery screen. ive tried restoring my laptop to a previous date, but that didnt help at all. i uninstalled and reinstalled Linux, and not even that worked. i even deleted the whole Linux partition, but that brought me to the GRUB screen STILL and i got error message 17. is a full system restore the only way? i really dont want to go so far, but...
PLEASE HELP

Xerxes (New user):

okay, guys, i am in desperate need of some help:
when i select Vista from the GRUB menu, it brings me straight to the Vista recovery screen. ive tried restoring my laptop to a previous date, but that didnt help at all. i uninstalled and reinstalled Linux, and not even that worked. i even deleted the whole Linux partition, but that brought me to the GRUB screen STILL and i got error message 17. is a full system restore the only way? i really dont want to go so far, but...
PLEASE HELP

Xerxes (New user):

okay, guys, i am in desperate need of some help:
when i select Vista from the GRUB menu, it brings me straight to the Vista recovery screen. ive tried restoring my laptop to a previous date, but that didnt help at all. i uninstalled and reinstalled Linux, and not even that worked. i even deleted the whole Linux partition, but that brought me to the GRUB screen STILL and i got error message 17. is a full system restore the only way? i really dont want to go so far, but...
PLEASE HELP

Xerxes (New user):

okay, guys, i am in desperate need of some help:
when i select Vista from the GRUB menu, it brings me straight to the Vista recovery screen. ive tried restoring my laptop to a previous date, but that didnt help at all. i uninstalled and reinstalled Linux, and not even that worked. i even deleted the whole Linux partition, but that brought me to the GRUB screen STILL and i got error message 17. is a full system restore the only way? i really dont want to go so far, but...
PLEASE HELP

Xerxes (New user):

okay, guys, i am in desperate need of some help:
when i select Vista from the GRUB menu, it brings me straight to the Vista recovery screen. ive tried restoring my laptop to a previous date, but that didnt help at all. i uninstalled and reinstalled Linux, and not even that worked. i even deleted the whole Linux partition, but that brought me to the GRUB screen STILL and i got error message 17. is a full system restore the only way? i really dont want to go so far, but...
PLEASE HELP

Xerxes (New user):

okay, guys, i am in desperate need of some help:
when i select Vista from the GRUB menu, it brings me straight to the Vista recovery screen. ive tried restoring my laptop to a previous date, but that didnt help at all. i uninstalled and reinstalled Linux, and not even that worked. i even deleted the whole Linux partition, but that brought me to the GRUB screen STILL and i got error message 17. is a full system restore the only way? i really dont want to go so far, but...
please help...

Dibbler (New user):

sucks that this site doesn't list dates on these posts. As far as I know you posted this a year ago... I did the same thing this weekend and tried all the fixes listed on various websites and ended up destroying the harddrive. These days trying to find a way to create a boot disc is like pulling my own teeth. Bunch of sites suggested using fdisk /mbr and fixmbr and other stuff and my computer ended up just giving me a "no operating system found" error. I had to install linux by formatting the whole drive to linex ext3 and then I couldn't get the display to work correctly (ATI card with constant flicker) so I tried to install windows but my recovery disk wouldn't work since it couldn't find a ntfs harddrive. I ended up finding a real copy of Vista from another computer and installed that. The installed copy was Vista Premium and the one that came with this computer was Vista Basic so after installing Premium I had to then install the recovery disc and install Windows again so that I'd have the correct copy.

Anyway, after all this crap I found a program called SuperGrub which would have solved everything. It took some looking and clicking through page after page of telling me to "click here to download" which would just take me to another site telling me to click again and again. It's a free program so not sure why the pain to get. Try www.supergrub.org

noogs (New user):

i have tried to do this but when i go into disk management and choose to shrink my volume it tells me that the size of available shrink space is 0 MB. please help!

noogs (New user):

i have tried to do this but when i go into disk management and choose to shrink my volume it says that the available shrink space is 0 MB. please help!

raf87 (New user):

in step 7 ubuntu can't detect vista regardless what partition applications i used (i have used both partition programs in vista and ubuntu) therefore, even I can install ubuntu. My vista is corrupt and can't boot. does anybody have an idea? thank's

Jason Smock (New user):

Does this conflict with the Leopard/Vista Boot Camp setup? Most of the install process is gratefully easy, but I don't want to screw up either my Mac partition or my Vista partition.

Nanoxy (User):

I did the dual boot vist installed first. Fine with no problem, now when I try so vista is the default to boot first I couldn't do it. I installed EasyBCD 1.7 and I did overwritten the bootloader, now vista is the default and now I have to configure the Linux (Ubuntu 7.10) but I was unsucessful. Can any please tell me how to configure the Linux so I can boot to Ubuntu. Thanks!

Nanoxy (User):

I did the dual boot vist installed first. Fine with no problem, now when I try so vista is the default to boot first I couldn't do it. I installed EasyBCD 1.7 and I did overwritten the bootloader, now vista is the default and now I have to configure the Linux (Ubuntu 7.10) but I was unsucessful. Can any please tell me how to configure the Linux so I can boot to Ubuntu. Thanks!

Mark (New user):

I managed to get Ubuntu installed, but now my external hard drive has disappeared. I was very careful not to get it involved.

Mark (New user):

I managed to get Ubuntu installed, but now my external hard drive has disappeared. I was very careful not to get it involved.

Rohith (New user):

Hi,
I am trying to install ubuntu on windows vista which has 3 partitions out which the first partition has windows vista and it occupies abt 55 gb of harddrive and second has 6 gb and the third has 17gb. I need to install ubuntu on 17 gb partition. So when I put the cd in my laptop and tried to install it. when the ubuntu partitioner starts loading. It only shows me two options one is guided use entire disk and the other is manual. It doesnt show me guided use the largest continuous free space. So I tried to select manual but when I clcicked on the partition of 17gb and hit forward it says an error message stating to use root file please help me out to solve this problem

jsdahlma (New user):

I am pondering the idea of a dual-boot system but im wondering if i would be able listen to all my music on both systems or does it all have to be installed on each partition?

Rohith (New user):

Yes you could because once u install ubuntu in ur system, automatically the other partitions could be seen on the desktop of ubuntu. So u can enter in to them and play the selected files

jsdahlma (New user):

so if i have a 500GB harddrive how big should i make the partitions? and should i make a 3rd partition just for my music and files i want to use on both systems?

Nanoxy (User):

You don't need another partition to store your music in it. All you need is a folder and name it Music. Now you can make another partition if you want for future storage and if you ever plan to install an OS.

stogchris81 (New user):

i just installed ubuntu and i am now trying to connect to the internet by typing in my password but it is not taking it. please help.

stogchris81 (New user):

i installed ubuntu and now i want to log onto my wireless network. i entered my password, but it wont accept it, just goes back to the key required screen. please help

Rohith (New user):

does ur laptop show all the available wireless networks ??

stogchris81 (New user):

yes.

Rohith (New user):

make sure u are giving the required WEP or WPA or WPA2. Set it accordingly

stogchris81 (New user):

i need wpa but it doesnot give me that option. just wpa2 and leap.

Nanoxy (User):

Im happy that I have manage to dual boot vista with ubuntu (vista installed first)But now I have a problem I don't know how to make vista to boot first. Can any help me I need to know exactly or deatils on how to make vista boot first I have try both ways but I was unsuccesful

soarernator (New user):

I just tried this on my system -

I have vista installed on a 300gb disk, and I have 2 x 640gb disks in a RAID1 for my media stuff, this is an NTFS disk also. RAID is controlled by the onboard controller on a gigabyte p35-ds3r. Working fine in Vista.

I created an Ubuntu live CD from the latest ISO and started the installer.

At the partition section, the "guided - use largest free space" option had selected one of my 640gb disks and I didnt seem to be able to select the other disks without changing the option to manual, which showed the 640gb disks seperately.

This got me worried about the RAID, so I cancelled the install, let it reboot and sure enough, the RAID was broken and had to be rebuilt.

Has anyone done it this way? Should I disable the RAID & disconnect the mirrored disks until Ubunutu is installed on the free space on the main O/S disk?


Also, the main O/S disk is on a seperate onboard SATA controller to the RAID disks, this was the only way for me to add the RAID without reinstalling Vista.

Cheers!

Nanoxy (User):

I have succesfuly dual boot Vista and Ubuntu. Now Im trying to configure the boot menu so Vista be the first to boot. Well I download EasyBCD and intalled it, and I reinstalled the Vista bootloader, now the Grub is overwritten and I don't see the option to boot into Ubuntu 8.04. I have try to reinstall the Grub menu to the bootloader so I can see both option but I was unsuccesful. Can anyone help me how can I reinstall the Grub menu to the Vista bootloader or give me the exact steps in how to do it. I also try to do it by editing the Grub menu but I also was unsuccesful. I will appreciate your help Yhanks!!

jisa (New user):

but my computer shows 128 Mb only to shrink, although my computer has 467477mb total space before shrinking. Size of avaiable space to shrink is 128Mb. Why it is like that and what should I do to increase the space and install ubuntu?

Peter Bateman (New user):

I've spent the morning trawling thru Linux websites, and it seems I'm not the only one to have stopped a previously good computer with the Grub malady. I will have to go cap in hand to a computer shop, and leave my machine there whilst they repair my Bios. I suppose they will use a simple recovery disk, or some such, and struggle to control their glee, as they charge me for daring to delve into the dark arts of OS installation. Thanks APC for your warnings re Grub, NOT, and I wish I hadn't seen your magazine at the newsagent on Thursday. Pissed off? Of course.

root (New user):

Apc is in no way liable for your actions, they did warn you.
I recommend anyone who wants to try linux back up first. Grub errors are easy to fix just google restore windows vista mbr or something like that. If anyone has any queries I am happy to provide support. I am not a member of apc, i am just a user with a display name root any more questions ?

Edhsiao (New user):

Hi there,
Can anyone help? I follow the above instructions but failed when I booted Ubuntu 8.04CD with the following warning message and then PC hung.

Warning: Address line 20 already enabled.

I have done the step 2.
My sys comes with pre-installed 32-bits OEM Vista home premium. I want to make dual boot sys with Ubuntu 8.04.

Motherboard: ASUS M2N-MX SE PLUS (built-in Nvidia nFource 430MP
CPU:AMD Phenom Quad Core 9600 processor. 2.3G
RAM: 4G Kingston DDR2 677 Memory

HDD:320G

Now the PC is running on 32bits mode Vista and how can I fix above problem to make it a dual boot sys with Ubuntu 8.04?

Thanks a lot.
Ed
Can some body

TT (New user):

Hello guys,

Does this tutorial work for debian 4.0? I am guessing it supposed to any flavour of linux, but just want to be sure if anybody have done this with Vista Ultimate SP1 and Debian 4.0?

TT (New user):

Hello guys,

Does this tutorial work for debian 4.0? I am guessing it supposed to any flavour of linux, but just want to be sure if anybody have done this with Vista Ultimate SP1 and Debian 4.0?

TT (New user):

Hello guys,

Does this tutorial work for debian 4.0? I am guessing it supposed to any flavour of linux, but just want to be sure if anybody have done this with Vista Ultimate SP1 and Debian 4.0?

TT (New user):

Sorry for the multiple entry, something went wrong somewhere... The new user registration page got screwed up a few times, and somehow it posts my questions "a few times" also.

Sorry.

AnswerIs0utThere (New user):

When I reach "Prepare disk space", Ubuntu only gives me the options of "Guided - use entire disk" with sub options "SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda) - 750.2 GB ATA 5T3750640AS" and "SCSI2 (0,0,0) (sdb) - 750.2 GB ATA 5T3750640AS" Or the option "Manual". It doesn't appear to recognize the partition I made in step one. What is going on?

Speedyfanger (New user):

In the past when I have installed a version of Linux along side windows and allowed it to install the "Grub" boot loader, it worked perfectly until I wished to uninstall Linux. It uninstalled and took the boot loader with it and I could no longer access my windows. I sat looking at blank screen before I remembered that I luckily had Partition Boot Magic installed in windows and it saved the day.
Next time I installed Linux I positioned the boot loader into the Linux partition and used Partition Boot Magic this facilitated removing Linux subsequently with any drama.
I have never seen any magazine mention this kind of complication and it is quite frightening when it happens. My wife and I were, at that time, sharing a computer and I was not looking forward to telling her all her data was gone.
What do you think?
Regards
John

TivoGuy (New user):

Your windows partition with all of its data are still in tact, it's just that the Master Boot Record doesn't know how to find the windows partition any more. On XP (and Vista), there is a way to fix the MBR from the recovery/installation disk. A google search will show you exactly what commands to type (of course, Vista is different from XP).

If you're looking for a boot-magic like utility, try EasyBCD by NEOSMART. (When you install LInux, make sure you install it to the root-drive partition, and not the MBR). BCD will see the linux partitions and allow you to add it to it's boot loader.

Best of all, it's free.

NP9262 Owner (New user):

Hello there. Help needed please !

I tried installing Ubuntu and then got a Grub error 21 message at boot up. I used to know quite a lot about computers, ya know, but that was when we all used monochrome screens. So here is what I did and what happened:

Just got yesterday a Sager NP 9262 laptop with 3 200gig drives (two in RAID 1-mirror and a third one non-RAID). Vista x64 was installed on the RAID drives and I wanted to install Ubuntu Hardy Heron (8.04) on the third drive, which was formatted in NTFS already but empty. So:

1) I booted from the Ubuntu CD and it listed the three drives as SCSI1, SCSI2 and SCSI3. From the drive space used and left, it was obvious the third drive was SCSI3. So I told Ubutntu to create a partition there after the NTFS one (shrinking it a bit) and to install.

2) Ubuntu then asked for the MBR Grub install (this is where I messed up, I guess). Was I supposed to install Grub on sda1 (windows/Longhorn Bootloader), sdb1 (windows/Longhorn Bootloader) or sdc1 (empty)? I thought that installing to sda1 or sdb1 could mess up things since the RAID was not detected, so I did what a careful noob would do: I left to default value (hd0).

3) Installation ran ok but a boot up, Vista just loaded without a bootloader. Then, on second boot after Ubuntu install, I think I saw for a brief moment the windows BSD (Blue Screen of Death) before entering boot loop. And on third boot, I got this dreaful message:

---

Grub loading stage 1.5

Grub loading please wait...
error 21

---

and voila. No more Vista, no more Ubuntu. Tada! I do know for sure that Ubuntu did install correctly on the third hard drive (the one that is not in RAID array), but obviously something went wrong with the bootloader.

Actually, I do not really care about having Grub or the Vista bootloader at startup. I was just hoping to boot with grub and take the info in menu.lst to inject it in vista bootloader with EasyBCD. I think installing Ubuntu to another drive should be simple, but I never found on the net a tutorial for installing Grub in a RAID1 MBR.

Anyway, if someone knows what happened and how to do correct this, please help ! Thanks !

billbones (New user):

Hey guys, I am a new user to linux and have decided to dual boot with vista. (Vista is terrible) So the problem is that I have followed this turorial and when I get to boot from the CD it comes up with the Ubuntu install screen but when i press "install ubuntu" I get a black screen with a flashing cursur in the top left hand side of the screen and thats it. I tried using the alternate ubuntu install and still nothing.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Bill

Vakama283 (New user):

I have quite a unique situation on my hands. I will try to explain it as clearly as possible.

I have an Acer laptop with Vista Home Premium preinstalled(so no windows cd)
I successfully dual booted it with Kubuntu(install cd available)
However, when i decided to uninstall Kubuntu, i got this at startup:

GRUB loading stage 1.5...

GRUB loading...
error22

I tried using the factory default disc but that did not work as i still got the error.

I dont know what to do now, so any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!

Vakama283 (New user):

Ok, nevermind the previous problem. now i reinstalled kubuntu and the GRUB works fine, but Vista cannot boot up. After i select it in the GRUB, the bootscreen comes up thenn it tells me:

Windows cannot complete the installation. To instal windows, restart the installation

Pls Help!!
Thanks again in advance.

vijay (New user):

Hi iam installed the windows xp in my dell xps m 1530 before that i have vista in my pc i formated the 2 partions in my hard disk but i want to use the media direct option in my new opeating system can any one guide me detail about the how to activate in my new opearting system did i required for the any drivers or softwares for the new parttion

Wating for the reply if any one know are did in there laptop if provide me the details i will be most happy person

Thank you

vijay (New user):

Hi iam installed the windows xp in my dell xps m 1530 before that i have vista in my pc i formated the 2 partions in my hard disk but i want to use the media direct option in my new opeating system can any one guide me detail about the how to activate in my new opearting system did i required for the any drivers or softwares for the new parttion

Wating for the reply if any one know are did in there laptop if provide me the details i will be most happy person

Thank you

vijay (New user):

Hi iam installed the windows xp in my dell xps m 1530 before that i have vista in my pc i formated the 2 partions in my hard disk but i want to use the media direct option in my new opeating system can any one guide me detail about the how to activate in my new opearting system did i required for the any drivers or softwares for the new parttion

Wating for the reply if any one know are did in there laptop if provide me the details i will be most happy person

Thank you

noodleninja (New user):

hi everyone im ste
really wanting ubuntu on my pc.

i have 2 X 200gb sata hdd on a raid volume so there combined as one drive.

i have tried shrinking the primary volume which worked successfully which i shrunk half the drive so they were equal for both OS
but when i setup up ubuntu it says not enough free space and doesnt give me my new partition as an option and if it does it then says again not enough free space which im sure 187gb is enough. i also have set my hdd's to non raid both of them but then vista doesnt install for some reason please any help would be grateful thanks

noodleninja (New user):

hi everyone im ste
really wanting ubuntu on my pc.

i have 2 X 200gb sata hdd on a raid volume so there combined as one drive.

i have tried shrinking the primary volume which worked successfully which i shrunk half the drive so they were equal for both OS
but when i setup up ubuntu it says not enough free space and doesnt give me my new partition as an option and if it does it then says again not enough free space which im sure 187gb is enough. i also have set my hdd's to non raid both of them but then vista doesnt install for some reason please any help would be grateful thanks

DAn jenkins (New user):

ahhhh when i install this i only get two options for the partioting with wipe the lot or manual. its not recognizing the vista. and when i try to partition it in the vista it dosnt even be aware of the partition i create or the free space in ubuntu. guys help!

Balth (New user):

Hey guys, just got a new laptop and I wanted to put linux on it, but keep vista just in case I find use for it.

I tried to shrink the partition, but I only get 3.81 GB of space max.

Any ideas as how to get more space separated from the main vista partition?

Image of my disk management (after attempting to shrink as much as I could):
http://img294.imageshack.us/my.php?image=partitionww8.jpg

Speedyfanger (New user):

I believe that every computer user should own two pieces of software.They can both provide some entertainment and a few heart stopping moments and are very useful. They are Acronis Disk Director and Acronis True Image. The latest versions are Vista compatible. Disk Director makes partitioning so easy and safe and the Acronis Boot Manager works a treat. The first time I installed Linux along side XP the Grub boot manager work fine until I uninstalled Linux and was left staring at blank screen. The Acronis Boot Media saved the day allowing me to get back into XP and saved a divorce

snert (New user):

Hi,

I don't wish to burst anyones bubble here but the options listed for setting up the partition in ubuntu do not match 8.04 image I downloaded this morning. Now after booting I get Missing Operating System. Great. Any suggestions?

dquach123 (New user):

so if it doesnt show vista longhorn in step 7, should i install it still? the thing is if i hit advanced, it shows the vista longhorn partitions. im scared someone help plzzz

also i just tried going on live session user, and i see 4 drives...
one says acer, cd/dvd, data, filesystem

mackafacka (New user):

If your Vista system needs to be repaired but dont got the disk and ubuntu still be installed? when i turn on my comp it loads to the boot menu

cope (New user):

can you install Linux on a secondary disk with Vista on the primary disk and select at booting which one you want?

raj (New user):

I have installed a ubuntu with vista already installed and it has installed linux on main drive on which vista installed and format whole disk and i lost all my data. then from live cd i had recovered all data lost due to formatting and removed ubuntu which was previously installed. then i restart and it showed error in grub as it was already deleted. now i want to use my previous setting with vista but it couldn't boot up with vista. i try to use start up repair but it shows that there is some removable usb connected and it needs to removed but actually there which was no device conneted. then i try to installed linux again from live cd. before that i have used Gparted and make partition of 10 GB and try to installed but it says that no valid space. then i have another 14 GB partition
which i formatted in nfts format and try to install but error message come like root menu not defined and go to partition editor but there is no such option. i tried all option like creating another partition with ext2/3 etc. but nothing works. now i can't use vista or ubuntu. can anybody help me to go back to vista and use my original setting. i have try to restore original point for
vista but no help. i thought that ubuntu is easy and friendly system but i was wrong.

David J Lewis (New user):

I am running raid 1 (mirrored) on my Vista 64 bit PC.
Do the same rules apply? or do I have to treat each drive one at a time.

David J Lewis (New user):

I am running Raid 1 (mirrored system using two discs.
Do I partition each drive seperately?

Ashwin (New user):

isnt it possible to avoid installing NoeGrub bootloader by directly editing the vista bootloader to include the linux boot entries ( using BCDEDIT.EXE from the vista command line ) ? that will make it less likely that problems will arise when installing future service packs (there are already reports that vista sp1 wont install on dual boot machines as the file integrity check fails)

Trgbeck (New user):

GRUB that allows you to choose the OS I want to run. The default OS is currently Ubuntu (if no keys are pressed the system boots into ubuntu) To change the default to be vista? Really simple download of ext2 for windows. This is an extion that allows you to view linux files and folders. But doesnt work for ext3 .
So Ok set up the dirve letters for your Linux version and use notpad to open /boot/grub/menu.lst in a text editor, you can change the line
default x to point to your Vista menu item.
As an example, if the line now reads default 0, (where the first menu item is Ubuntu, and the second item is Vista in your menu.lst file, you should change the line to read default 1 so Grub boots the Vista item by default.

Note: Grub counts the menu items in the menu.lst file starting from item zero (0).